Hunt Lake Manitoba Narrows

Manitoba Conservation’s Wildlife and Ecosystem Protection Branch (WEPB) has conducted big game questionnaires for almost 50 years. This questionnaire is vital for the proper management and conservation of Manitoba’s big game species (white-tailed deer, elk, moose, barren-ground caribou, black bear and wolf). The main goal of the questionnaire is to estimate how many animals are harvested annually. This information is essential to determine the number of licenses available, set bag limits and maintain future hunting opportunities.

In the early days of the program, hunters submitted a questionnaire that was attached to their licenses. In other years, the program mailed questionnaires and did telephone interviews. More recently, a sample of non-draw license holders was randomly selected to receive questionnaires with postage-paid return envelopes. All draw license holders received a questionnaire. In 2009, the wildlife branch began collecting questionnaire responses online.

Under the previous, mail-based survey design, participants received paper questionnaires and postage-paid return envelopes. In the interests of efficiency, hunters now receive a postcard requesting that they complete the questionnaire online. As a result, WEPB can now survey every licensed hunter in the province as opposed to just a small sample. All hunters, including those who are not mailed a reminder postcard, are encouraged to go to the questionnaire website at the end of the hunting seasons and complete a questionnaire for each licence purchased. Hunters can receive multiple postcards that occurs when a hunter’s name appears in the database more than once.

Collecting questionnaire responses through the Internet is much faster. Once a response is submitted online, it is automatically put into a database. Receiving the responses sooner means faster reactions to the information. The new system also allows collection of more, and different, types of information.

For a variety of reasons, some hunters purchase a specific licence but do not hunt. Licence holders who did not hunt represent a cross-section of the entire hunting population. WEPB asks that you provide your information to ensure that we receive a representative sample of licensed hunters.

The basic questions asked are:

– How many days did you hunt?

– Where did you hunt?

– What type of animal was harvested, if any?

– How did the animal population in your hunting area compare to previous years? The answer to this question helps us estimate population trends since hunters are important “eyes and ears” in the field.

In addition to the web-based questionnaires, there is a toll-free number to collect hunter information. Call 1-877-892-7627, leave your name and phone number and someone will return your call and take your information.

All responses remain strictly confidential. Responses are used to estimate total harvest for each hunting season. Information is summarized and used by biologists and regional wildlife managers to establish bag limits, season dates and the number of licences available. These questionnaires are a very important part of big game management in Manitoba. Licensed hunters are the link between what happens during this year’s hunting season and how that will affect next year’s hunting season. Summary statistics are available on the WEPB website or by contacting the branch.

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Canadians, by a small margin, favour scrapping long gun registration, which hasn’t worked the way it was intended.

Once again, the gun registry is a political issue in Canada.

Tories want registration abolished for long guns — shotguns and hunting rifles — while the Liberals (as ordered by Michael Ignatieff) want it kept, but to make failure to register a gun a non-criminal, ticketing offense.

When gun registration was implemented in 1993 by the Liberal government of Jean Chretien (Bill C-68), the Canadian public was told it would cost $2 million — the difference between what the government paid and what licensing or registration fees would bring in.

By the end of that decade, it was apparent costs had reached $1 billion and rising, with no appreciable decline in the use of firearms in crimes. More significant is the goal of registering every firearm in Canada, largely aimed at reducing crime by making every gun traceable, has been a failure.

In 1974, prior to mandatory gun registration, the justice department figured 10 million guns were owned by Canadians. By 1994, a year after registration, it was estimated there were 7 million guns in Canada.

Does that indicate a 30% decline in gun ownership over 20 years when the population increased by some 40%? Nope. What it indicates is many people didn’t register their long guns, possibly fearing confiscation would be next, or simply mistrusting government intentions.

Whatever the reason, a huge percentage of Canadians who own unregistered guns are un-convicted criminals, which explains why Ignatieff wants to decriminalize failure to register.

Police chiefs (as opposed to police members) publicly support gun registration. Rank and file cops are not so politically correct, and have doubts.

Homicide and suicide rates over the years tend to argue against firearm registration as an inhibiting factor. After firearms registration, Canada’s suicide rate was relatively stable, with a decrease of some 20% in suicide by guns, but a similar increase of suicide “by other means.” Suicide with a gun can be impetuous and messy, but all suicides are fatal, and statistically are relatively constant year after year.

Homicides remain relatively the same before and after gun controls — firearms used in homicides are in the 30% range, with hand guns (banned or registered since 1934) by far the favoured weapon of murder.

Interestingly, Canada and Australia, both with gun controls, have roughly the same homicide rate per 100,000 of population (1.57), but Canadians are twice as likely as Australians to use a gun to murder someone.

In the U.S. the homicide ratio per 100,000 of population is three times higher than in Canada — but murders are six times more likely to be with a gun.

The private member’s bill (C-391) by Manitoba Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner squeezed through two readings (164-137) with the support of a handful of rural Liberal MPs.

Michael Ignatieff “ordering” all Liberal MPs to vote against it on third reading poses an interesting dilemma if there’s an election. Polls show Canadians, by a small margin, favour scrapping gun registration, which hasn’t worked the way it was intended.

Hand guns and automatic assault weapons are the real danger, while the shotgun and hunting rifle are part of the Canadian heritage. Many law-abiding citizens have been branded criminals because they haven’t registered these guns.

That, surely, is a reason to change a bad, unenforceable law.